First, not voting is OK. Choosing the new ruler who will decide how much of our money and property to “allow” us to keep from among two or three Republicrat lawyers who’ve already piled up hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of obligations to the big developers, law firms, and casinos resembles assisted suicide.

Which candidate on Tuesday’s ballots would close the compulsory government youth propaganda camps (cutting our tax burdens in half, setting our children free to apprentice in useful trades and mature at a far earlier age, allowing a return to the kind of real literacy demonstrated by folks like Ben Franklin, who quit school at 10)? Which would sue the federal government for claiming to “own” most of Nevada, throw out all the unconstitutional gun laws, and re-legalize all medicinal plant extracts? Not a one.

If you want truly lower taxes and/or a smaller, less meddlesome government, vote Libertarian or even Independent American -- and none of those guys will appear till November.

That said, the most important race on Tuesday’s ballot is for the seat of Supreme Court Justice Nancy Becker, who joined the majority in overruling the state Constitution on thoroughly fraudulent grounds in order to facilitate a huge tax hike in the despicable 2003 “Guinn v. Legislature” decision. That would be enough to earn this troll a one-way ticket to infamy, but get this: Justice Becker ALSO ruled that the city’s redevelopment seizure of the downtown Pappas property and handing it over to the downtown casino barons was A-OK ... AND personally promoted the boondoggle known as the Regional Justice Center.

Who’s her campaign advisor, Mephistopheles?

The natural alternative to Justice Becker might appear to be District Judge Nancy Saitta, despite the recent L.A. Times expose on the Clark County court system that singled out Judge Saitta for allowing lawyers to throw her an expensive fund-raising party while they actually had a case in front of her. I considered holding my nose and voting for Judge Saitta anyway, based on reports she was running specifically to unseat Justice Becker over the loathesome Guinn v. Legislature decision.

Until I received a mailer from Judge Saitta. What did it have to say on this issue? “Judge Saitta ... deeply respects your vote and our Constitution. Judge Saitta ... honors individual property rights while recognizing the needs of the community. ...”

Talk about a bunch of lawyerly double-talk. I’m sure Batu Khan would have claimed to be “carefully balancing your property rights against the needs of the community” as his Golden Horde put your village to the torch.

Now, I’m just taking a first stab at this, but I would think if the main reason I were running for Supreme Court was a burning desire to dump this bum Nancy Becker and overrule her despicable “Guinn v. Legislature” decision, my mailer might lead off by saying, oh, I don’t know, something like: “The main reason I’m running is to dump this lousy bum Nancy Becker. Not only do I intend to overrule her despicable decision in ‘Guinn v. Legislature,’ I intend to take the first opportunity to wrap up a fresh pile of steaming dog manure in a copy of ‘Guinn v. Legislature,’ place it on Nancy Becker’s doorstep, set fire to it, and ring her doorbell.”

I’ll tell you what’s happened here: Ms. Saitta is scared to death to name Justice Becker, or the drive-by third-finger salute Ms. Becker and her cohorts gave Nevada voters, for fear that, should Ms. Saitta lose, Justice Becker will retaliate by reversing Judge Saitta up in Carson City even more than she already does, which is plenty. (Mind you, I don’t hold reversals against a judge. A judge honestly refusing to enforce unconstitutional laws wouldn’t last a month in today’s “whatever helps the G-men” climate.)

Sorry. This was an occasion that called for some courage and straight talk, Judge Saitta -- even if it meant telling the Bar Association to go stuff their unconstitutional “keep-your-mouth-shut” canons -- not for tiptoeing around and making sure you’re still welcome for high tea at the Old Girls’ Club.

Nick Del Vecchio, a salt-of-the-earth family court judge who got where he is through sheer persistence, and who has actually been known to occasionally give dads a fair shake in his courtroom, will do a lot better in this race than anyone expects.

I will ignore the Democrats, who now want to add our 5-year-olds to those they seize at gunpoint and lock up in their mandatory youth propaganda camps. (Look up school “attendance regulations” in the Nevada Revised Statutes. You’ll find it actually says “Compulsory Attendance Regulations.” What does “compulsory” mean? Do you think if you ignore them, men with guns won’t eventually come knocking?)

As for the Republican gubernatorial primary, if you want the state to continue to be run by the special-interest “handlers” who danced Bob Miller and Kenny Guinn and the biggest-tax-hike-in-state-history across the stage, then slow-on-the-uptake Congressman Jim Gibbons is your man.

Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt says -- I have no reason to doubt her -- that Rep. Gibbons is solely responsible for the fact we have Harry Reid as our senior senator. Ms. Hunt was prepared to challenge “landslide” Harry two years back, but Rep. Gibbons called and pleaded with her to stay out, so that he -- Jim Gibbons -- would have a clear shot. Then -- when it was too late for Lorraine to get back in -- Rep. Gibbons folded his tent and slunk out of town in the dead of night, opting to wait for a “safer” race.

Considerably more independent and lacking in “Sold” stickers -- bright and energetic, for good measure -- are the aforementioned Lorraine Hunt and state Sen. Bob Beers.

Ms. Hunt is of the “moderate,” Kenny Guinn wing of the party, which seems to have few objections to endless government growth. Sen. Beers, on the other hand, invented the “Tax and Spending Control initiative,” an awfully roomy corral which would allow government to continue to grow at a rate far too fast for me.

Ergo, the fact that Rep. Gibbons and every other “vetted” candidate out there -- along with the special interests that fund them -- want to stake TASC through the heart (preferably in court, before you even get a chance to vote on it) should give you an indication of the way these creatures of the night throb with an unclean desire when they notice there’s still a warm pulse beating in our throats.

Sixteen candidates face off for the vacant post of Clark County sheriff. If you like the long tradition of retiring sheriffs hand-picking their successors, vote for Doug Gillespie, and spend your spare time in front of the mirror practicing keeping your hands up and not making ANY furtive movements toward your waistband, now a de facto capital offense in Clark County.

On-duty Metro cops have killed plenty of unarmed “civilians” here since Charles Bush in 1990 -- and expected taxpayers to shell out hundreds of thousands to settle the resulting lawsuits. (Look up “Perrin” and “Barlow,” to start with.) The present coroner’s inquest system and Metro’s Office of Internal Affairs said every one of those killings was okey-dokey.

Would helicopter entrepreneur Jerry Airola -- subject of a number of legal actions, though that doesn’t prove much in today’s business climate -- change that? I haven’t heard him talk about it. But the Metro brass and all their unions lining up against him sure is interesting. If you like things just the way they are, vote for either Undersheriff Gillespie or Bill Conger, whose only “plan” is to add more snarling traffic cops to give us tickets as we do 32 mph through school crossings so abandoned at 10:30 in the morning that they look like sets for “On the Beach.”